Meanwhile, The Oracle of Redwood Shores gained notoreity for the decision to renege on a promised $110 million donation to Harvard, perhaps the best, best-known, and wealthiest university in the world.

Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison has decided not to give Harvard University a planned gift of $115 million, a company spokesman said Tuesday. Ellison's promise to Harvard last year created a sensation throughout the philanthropic community because it would have been the school's largest single contribution. The gift would have created a global health foundation named after Ellison. Wynne said Ellison planned to make a donation to another institution, but had no details as to the size of the planned contribution or where it will be made. Wynne said he didn't know if Ellison had notified Harvard of his intentions.

While both men are among the world's wealthiest- Buffett the 2nd, Ellison the 16th - but their motivations for their large donations are a study in contrasts. Ellison's have distinct overtones of the personal and the importance of personality:

Ellison canceled the gift because Lawrence H. Summers stepped down as Harvard's president this month after a stormy tenure at the university, Oracle spokesman Bob Wynne said. Summers announced his resignation in February, after being embroiled in controversy throughout 2005. Wynne said Ellison began to reconsider his donation when it appeared that Summers would step down.

There is also a self-serving element at work:

Last week, Ellison made a $5 million donation as part of a planned $100 million contribution to the Ellison Medical Foundation, a nonprofit that Ellison launched several years ago. The contribution is part of an unusual settlement to an insider-trading lawsuit filed by aggrieved shareholders who sued Ellison two years ago. The contribution plus $22 million in lawyer fees settles a civil complaint that revolves around a $900 million gain he generated by selling some of his Oracle stock shortly before the company's shares plummeted in 2001.

Buffett, like world's richest man Bill Gates, appear to be motivated by larger concerns:

Gates and Buffett share the philosophy that giving your children too much money is a burden, not a gift, and is not a rational thing to do with all that wealth. Seven years ago, Buffett told ABC News' "Nightline" that being born into wealth did not entitle his children to fortune. "Buffett once told Fortune magazine: 'A very rich person would leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing,'" Hobson said. ... "We agreed with Andrew Carnegie, who said that huge fortunes that flow in large part from society should in large part be returned to society," Buffett, 75, told Fortune in an interview laying out his charitable-giving plans. He said the philanthropy was encouraged by his wife, Susan, who died in 2004. Buffett, the world's second-richest person, committed to give away his shares in his company, Berkshire Hathaway, to five foundations over time.

As the New York Times tells it, Buffett is more concerned with the legacy he wants to leave than to have something named after him:

Mr. Buffett had insisted that he would wait until his death to make a sizable charitable bequest, but he told Fortune that the death of his wife, Susan, in 2004, his admiration for the Gateses and his certainty about how to dispose of his wealth had caused him to "get going" now. Fred P. Hochberg, dean of the Milano School for Management and Urban Policy at the New School, which has a large nonprofit-management department, said Mr. Buffett's historic contribution to the Gates Foundation was in character. "It's egoless," he said. "Warren's name is not on the door."

Although Mr. Ellision's ego is legendary - he did, after all, grace the cover of a book about himself entitled "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corporation" in no way do I mean to diminish the good that his donations will do. Nor, for that matter, to I want to discount the enormous economic value that his company, Oracle, and its products have produced. That said, one hardly needs to consult the Oracle of Delphi to know that donations given as part of a legal settlement and ones given more selflessly shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath. Buffett and Gates appear to be giving in a manner consistent with the roots of the word "philanthropy" - love of or concern for humankind - while Ellison pays the equivalent of 10 million hours of "community service."

See also: Larry Ellision Hasn't Made Good |

Links: The Carnival of the Capitalists |

Tags: Bill Gates | gates foundation | warren buffett | Buffett | Berkshire Hathaway | oracle | larry ellison |